Relaxing In The Scottish Countryside

Demi and I are now on our Easter holiday and I have spent the first few days staying with two of my best buds in one of their lovely houses in the Scottish Countryside.
After going all out for the last week of uni with two birthdays, including my own, it was nice to finally have some fresh country air!
We went to the seaside, had some nice walks, and drunk lots of gin and tonic! - a perfect few days!
We even went riding, but I, not being a very seasoned rider, came flying off the horse! At least it gave me a good excuse for some extra drinks each night!
Also, the friend we were staying with had the cutest dog called Bramble. She was a poodle and I think probably the first 'big(ish)' dog I've ever really liked.

Feeding The Hens

Claire - Posing

Baking!

Pre-falling off horse

BRAMBLE!

Alex x
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Birthday Baking

So as yesterday marked the start of a weekend where I had nothing planned I knew that meant one thing and one thing only! I had to bake...

Also because of the fact that it is my dear friend, (and fellow blogger) Alexs' birthday this coming Tuesday, my housemate and I thought it would be a cracking idea to make her some birthday cupcakes! (I mean who doesn't love cake on their birthday?)

As my housemate has rather more work to do than me at the moment, I waved her off to the library and eagerly awaited her return in the evening to let the cupcake creating commence.

In the meantime, another friend of mine came round so we could make some goodies of our own to enjoy. We went for Banana bread with the hidden surprise of warm gooey strawberries in as an extra treat. I hate to admit it but our first attempt was an absolute disaster (charcoal would have looked paler next to it)... but anyway we kept calm and carried on. The second was a bit of a beauty if I say so myself. Here is a picture of our very strawberry Banana Bread:

 Banana Bread decorated with icing sugar and strawberries... Delicious!



So gooey and scrumptious!!

If you want the recipe for this beauty it can be found on the following website: http://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2012/03/strawberry-banana-bread.html There are also tonnes of other recipes on here to get your mouth watering, so definitely give it a look if you want some bakespiration.

Now for the cupcakes... We had intended to do red velvet but our red food colouring was doing a very bad job of turning the sponge red. Anyway, our take on red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, flaked dark chocolate savings and twisted strawberries to decorate.

 I've had this cakestand for ages so it deserved its 15 minutes of fame...

The proof is in the pudding?

The recipe that we followed for this was really simple and can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/red-velvet-cupcakes-1.html I would, however, recommend you search round for some good (gel) red food colouring because ours didn't really do its job properly.

Anyways Happy Birthday Alex. Enjoy your yummy birthday treats and many happy returns!

Happy Baking all!

Demi xo 





Street Spice Newcastle

After a toughly won netball match on Saturday morning my friend, Charlotte and I decided some good food was in order. I had heard about a three day street food festival being held in Newcastle at the Life Centre called Street Spice. Being the foodie that I am, it was a must do on my list to attend. I just wish there was more stuff like this in Newcastle!

They also had cooking demonstrations

Charlotte and I spent about 40 minutes doing several laps trying decided what to eat but we both settled on a bread bowl with pulled pork, bbq sauce, cheese, cajun fries, and coleslaw. YUM! We both resisted the amazing cupcakes and bought half a pint each...lad lad lads.

I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more of these gastronomy events in the future and might convince Demi to take a trip next year with me to the food show!

For some funny reason the sun had been out in Newcastle all day so we finished off out chilled saturday with a few drinks in Jesmond. Fab day all round!

Alex xx